The Center for Global Engagement hosted a successful Welcome Back Global Coffee Hour, including returned study abroad students, faculty, international students, and staff. In collaboration with the Outdoor Center, our international students had the opportunity to learn to surf, embark on a full moon hike, and kayak this month.

Karl Drerup Art Gallery

Yang JiKui is a prominent Chinese painter, well known for his elegant ink brush paintings of traditional subjects such as exotic flowers, birds, fish, and garden foliage. His paintings are bold in scale and execution. His masterful technique demonstrates the power and nuances available to an artist with his understanding and experience. Yang JiKui’s exhibition has inspired a lecture series that will coincide with his visit to Plymouth State University: “Adventures in Chinese Culture,” featuring presentations by eight distinguished scholars on many topics. His painting exhibition runs from Tuesday, October 1-Saturday, November 9, with an opening reception Tuesday, October 1, 4-5 p.m. For more information, visit the gallery website at www.plymouth.edu/gallery, or contact us via email at kdag.art@plymouth.edu.

Museum of the White Mountains

Staff, volunteers, and students have made great progress, under the leadership of Collections Assistant Lindsay Bolduc on the Online Database. There are 1672 items on-line including 917 postcards (entire collection), 689 Stereographs (entire collection) and 18 paintings by White Mountain Women artists (the MacIntyre collection).

Student and alumni volunteers include:

Kaitlyn Aldrich-Holmes developing educational, entertaining, and informative Facebook posts. She analyzes the feedback and numbers from the Museum’s FB analytics page, researches and writes postings, and responds to inquiries. There are over 2,000 active followers.

Sarah Mayo ‘12, is a recent PSU graduate, working on scanning projects.

Tegan Donnoly cataloging the Dan Noel Collection of photographic prints in the PastPerfect. She also conducts research to identify specific locations featured in the historic photographs.

Alyssa Boehm is scanning and cataloging the Dick Smith Collection of colored transparencies.

Marie Shaheen ‘11 is cataloging the large and growing book collection, which includes the Dan Noel and the Jack Newton Collections.

Lauren Plummer ’11 just finished a new set of GPS coordinates for the Cairn share site. The coordinates lead people to sites of cultural and historic significance in the Whites, to take pictures and upload images and stories. The site encourages visitors to become part of the living culture of the region. www.plymouth.edu/the-cairn/

Geologist and informal science educator Sarah Garlick is now working with researchers at Carnegie Mellon University to incorporate a new technology developed by NASA and Carnegie Mellon called Gigapan into the next exhibition. “To the Extremes: The Geology of Adventure in the White Mountains” (Phase II) opens in March 2014.

Ben Amsden (CRP) has been selected as the spring 2014 MWM Fellow to pursue work with AMC White Mountain Guideeditors Steve Smith and Mike Dickerman on the “History of Trail Clubs” exhibition.

Marcia Schmidt Blaine (HIPSE) continues to work as the Museum Scholar on the upcoming “Women of the Whites” exhibition. As part of that work, she guided the research of summer intern Ashley Williams, a graduate student in Public History from North Carolina State University.

Visitor traffic has been great with over 3500 people coming to Plymouth from across New England and beyond. Many have traveled specifically to visit the museum. There have been 15 groups of senior citizens, several Boy Scout troops, over fifty 8th graders from Plymouth Middle School, and some PSU classes. The MWM has also hosted the Granite State Ambassadors, the New Hampshire Humanities Council, and other civic groups.

The MWM mailed over 200 of the DVD’s made for the current exhibition to regional and North Country schools. It is free on for viewing on the website but some schools are without high-speed internet connection. It was an opportunity to introduce the current exhibition and make them aware of all the on-line resources including the standards based curriculum packets.

The MWM funded the exhibition “The Great Blow Down: Effects of the 1938 Hurricane in Northern New England” curated by Lourdes Aviles (ASC). It is currently on display at the Mount Washington Observatory’s Weather Discovery Center that attracts over 44,000 viewers annually. It was on the cover of the Conway Daily Sun. The exhibition is one of a series of STEM educational, outreach initiatives by the MWM that will be making available for free to schools and not-for profit organizations.

This week the MWM launched a new web page dedicated to gathering and sharing information about WM art collectors Robert and Dorothy Goldberg. “Through the Eyes of the Dealers: Bob and Dot Goldberg” allows the MWM to collect stories and images of those two renowned North Conway residents prior to the opening of an exhibition of the same title in the museum on
Oct 17. All works are on loan from the Hood Museum at Dartmouth College; text is by Charles Vogel.

Faculty and Student News and Updates

Anil B. Waghe (ASC) participated in “Active Learning in Organic Chemistry,” an NSF-sponsored Chemistry Collaborations, Workshops and Community of Scholars workshop in Charlotte, NC. The pros and cons of various technological tools and methods were discussed including pen casting, clickers and flipped classroom. MCAT & associated changes in organic chemistry was another hot topic for debate. All nationwide organic chemistry participants have agreed to share their expertise through newly established NSF sponsored OrganicERs portal.

Eric Kelsey (ASC) has teamed with University of Bergen, Norway Research Professor, Michel Mesquita, to teach PSU meteorology graduate students how to use a high-resolution numerical weather forecasting model in Eric’s Boundary Layer Meteorology course this fall semester. To help students learn how to use the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, they will complete an online tutorial about the WRF model that was developed by Michel and modified by Eric for this course. After completion of the online tutorial, the students will work as a team on a class project to perform the following tasks: 1) choose a boundary layer phenomenon (e.g., nocturnal inversion), 2) develop and execute a field campaign to measure this boundary layer phenomenon using PSU and Mount Washington Observatory instrumentation, 3) analyze the data, 4) use the WRF to simulate the boundary layer phenomenon, and 5) quantify the WRF model forecast skill of the boundary layer phenomenon. Through online video conferencing, Michel will join the class regularly to help advise the students on their class project.

Shannon Rogers (CFE) has organized a new Science Café in Plymouth. On Tuesday, October 15 at 6pm, Biederman’s Deli and Pub will be hosting the first Science Brew Café in partnership with Plymouth State University’s Center for the Environment and Environmental Science and Policy Department. Science Cafés are unique. They are designed for people to learn about science and meet scientists in a comfortable, community setting. The topic on tap for the first Science Café is “Sensing New Hampshire’s Streams and Rivers.” Mark Green,Ashley Hyde, and Errin Volitis will provide an overview of their work studying rivers and streams in New Hampshire. Food and drink can be ordered from the menu, admission is free. Support for this event is also being provided by NHEPSCoR and the National Science Foundation. For more information, please contact Shannon Rogers, 603-535-2216.

The Center for Rural Partnership’s new Student Engagement Laboratory welcomes four new students this fall: James Patton (Criminal Justice), Jacqueline Savage (Anthropology/Sociology), Iveta Stefancova (Tourism Management and Policy), and Jessica Wilhelm (Environmental Science and Policy) . The purpose of the Student Engagement Laboratory is to involve students in collaborative research and outreach projects with and among local, regional, and international partners. Students interested in learning more about the Lab should contact Ben Amsden or Marylynn Cote

Brad Allen (CoBA) taught a summer class at Harvard University on the topic of applied corporate responsibility. This class stems from his research and longtime interest in the topic of sustainability and renewable energy as well as his time as a research director at Technology Business Research from 2009 to 2011. The class focused on a variety of initiatives that corporations have implemented around energy, water, carbon emissions, recycling, employee engagement, and supply chain management. He has had the good fortune of working with senior executives from EMC, Timberland, AMD, Quantis, and Stonyfield Yogurt, thus his students were able to engage in current case studies on a variety of topics and then meet with each of the executives to discuss their responses and examine how actual companies addressed the challenges of improved environmental stewardship. His students this year were all graduate students from seven different countries and represented Harvard, Yale, and the London School of Economics. He was also able to include a guest lecture from Plymouth State’s own Sam Miller(Atmospheric Science and Chemistry Department), who gave an outstanding overview of the science of climate change. This is Brad’s third summer teaching this class and his seventh summer overall as a teaching fellow at the Harvard Summer School.

Bob Nadeau (CoBA) forwarded the news that “The Union Leader” newspaper ran the following headline with front page article in their business section August 19: “PSU makes list of Top University Sales Programs.” Here is a link to the article:

Also, the Sales program added another corporate sponsor for their Professional Sales Program, DHL, a global logistics company. That brings the number of companies on their sales advisory board to 20. In aggregate, these companies represent some 1.3M employees. Assuming an annual turnover of 5%, this creates about 65,000 job openings year.

The Center for the Environment coordinates PSU’s MS program in Environmental Science and Policy and this fall eight new students have started in the program. Program coordinator June Hammond Rowan organized an orientation for the students that included introductions, a chance to meet faculty, information about the program requirements, and a field trip up Mount Washington with students and faculty in the MS in Meteorology program. Students learned about the history and operations at the Mt. Washington State Park from the Park Manager, toured the Mt. Washington Observatory and their museum, and spent time exploring the very foggy summit. On the way down, the weather cleared just above treeline and everyone got to enjoy the spectacular views.

June Hammond Rowan (CFE) attended the Coos County Symposium on May 29-31 where she facilitated two discussions on environment and natural resources.

June Hammond Rowan gave a talk on June 6 at Lin-Wood School to participants in the school’s “Girls of Summer” summer reading and writing program. This summer, the program used Mountain Summers, a book co-edited by June, as the focus of their reading program.

The schedule for the fall Science Colloquium Series is posted on the CFE website. We have a great line-up of speakers covering diverse topics. The Colloquium is organized by Doug Earick. (The Science Colloquium is a popular event and people from the community and campus regularly attend. If you plan on sending your class to Colloquium please let Doug know so we can plan for seating.)

Meagan Shedd (ECS) participated in the National Writing Project Institute in Plymouth as a fellow this summer. She also served as a Professional Development Project Review Member for the Early Literacy Teacher Education Project (ELTEP) for the Child Research and Study Center.

Trish Lindberg (El Ed) was one of three core faculty in Elementary/Middle School Theatre at the Tennessee Arts Academy in Nashville, Tennessee July 13-19.

Irene Cucina (HHP) attended a Congressional Briefing on September 25 in Washington, DC on the State of Health and Physical Education in Our Schools. Sponsored by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (NY) and Representative Marcia Fudge (OH-11), the goal was to promote Health and Physical Education as a core subject.

Eric Cintron (L&L), as Advisor to the Nicaragua Club, took 9 students to Nicaragua over 10 days in May. The group visited and stayed with families in the urban area of Managua and in the rural town of La Paz for the purpose of working on service and sustainability projects within the community — building kitchens, visiting local community centers and schools, installing bio-gas pit heating systems, etc. As an extension of the relationships developed through these service trips, a dance group from Managua will be touring the United States and performing at Plymouth State University on September 26 at 7:00PM and will be visiting classrooms as part of the Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 – October 15).

Beth Daily (MTD) presented “Post Tenure Pathways in Theatre Voice” at the Voice and Speech Trainer’s Association national conference at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis in July. She worked with Andrew Wade, voice/text coach at the Guthrie Theatre, and Andrea Haring of the Linklater Voice Center (NYC). She also visited with several PSU theatre alums in Chicago: Tyler Rich ’07, who recently performed in Cymbeline at First Folio Theatre in July; Curtis Jackson ’10 who completed the 10-week residency program at The School at Steppenwolf and was coached by Tony nominee, actress Amy Morton; Amanda Frechette ’07, stage manager; and Brian ’07 and Erica (Skelly) O’Shaughnessey ’08 who recently married. Brian recently completed a stint at the Second City Training Center doing training in comedy improv. At Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, MA, Beth visited with Jessie Earl ’09 who is a stage manager, educator and production assistant and this summer is serving as personal assistant to actress Olympia Dukakis.

David Haight (HiPSSE) attended meetings of the Northern New England Philosophy Association this summer at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire.

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